April 27, 2018

DNA, Horrible Criminals, Privacy And Less

A series of rapes in an old gold mining area east of Sacramento in 1976 were first linked by the authorities for their geographic proximity, the similar description of the rapist — a white male with blond hair who was just under six feet tall — and the peculiar and cruel rituals that he inflicted on his victims. His victims included women home alone and women at home with their children. The suspect went on to rape women with their husbands present and then murder them both. He is also thought to have burglarized more than 120 homes.

He became an infamous figure, sometimes known as the Golden State Killer and other times as the East Area Rapist and the Original Night Stalker. His planning was meticulous and he seemed to know precise details about his victims’ schedules. They described the gravelly, angry whisper that he used as he tormented them. He wore gloves and a mask and was a predator with quirks: As his victims lay terrified, he would pause for a snack of crackers after raping them. He placed a teacup and saucer on the bodies of some of his victims and threatened them with murder if he heard the ceramic rattle.

With communities panicking — at one point his assaults averaged two victims a month — the authorities hired a range of experts to help them break the case, among them a military special forces officer and a psychic.

Then, when the rapes and murders appeared to end in 1986, the case went cold.

Full details of the breaks in the case are not yet available but these details are very cool, in a "Oh my God, between DNA and Facebook we have no privacy at all" sort of way:

SACRAMENTO — The Golden State Killer raped and murdered victims all across the state of California in an era before Google searches and social media, a time when the police relied on shoe leather, not cellphone records or big data.

But it was technology that got him. The suspect, Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, was arrested by the police on Tuesday. Investigators accuse him of committing more than 50 rapes and 12 murders.

Investigators used DNA from crime scenes and plugged that genetic profile into a commercial online genealogy database. They found distant relatives of Mr. DeAngelo’s and traced their DNA to him.

“We found a person that was the right age and lived in this area — and that was Mr. DeAngelo,” said Steve Grippi, the assistant chief in the Sacramento district attorney’s office.

Investigators then obtained what Anne Marie Schubert, the Sacramento district attorney, called “abandoned” DNA samples from Mr. DeAngelo. “You leave your DNA in a place that is a public domain,” she said.

The test result confirmed the match to more than 10 murders in California. Ms. Schubert’s office then obtained a second sample and came back with the same positive result, matching the full DNA profile.

Huh. Normally a big limitation to DNA evidence is that, while it can confirm a match, it can only point to suspects already in a DNA database, normally for past arrests or convictions.

But tracking relatives though a non-criminal database? Clever, but questions about familial DNA matching have beenand will be raised. And denials are everywhere:

Representatives at 23andMe and other gene testing services denied on Thursday that they had been involved in identifying the killer.

Let me note that in 2010 California busted the "Grim Sleeper" after getting a familial DNA match on his son from a criminal database. So the concept is not new but the use of a geneaolgy datbase rather than a criminal one seems to be.

Comments

You're welcome, JMH; it was a very pleasant surprise by my book group which otherwise mainly irks me with what they inflict on me. I even copied some of the influences Marra mentioned for further explorations.

Well, what do you expect after we found her messin' round with another app?
Please excuse us while we go back to our favorite Mexico ... a place where a man can be free ...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40DVJUeBCMM

That's great, as I pointed out I've read it costaguana In both languages and Anne Mclean does a better job in English, the usual suspects have raved over his later work, which I found meh, another tale about drug war, and the one about a political caricaturist, which is too laden with uribe derangement. A picaresque Walter mitty comic homage to Conrad, you don't see that every day.

JMH, I went to St Petersburg in the early 90s. I got a sort of insider’s tour from a Russian cousin. It was still recovering from the Soviet era, very corrupt of course, but lots to see. The Hermitage was amazing, like a museum frozen in time as of 1917. It was also in June, so got to see the “White Nights.”

narciso will be back. He keeps leaving comments in moderation. I’m not even sure he realizes he’s in moderation. He’s pretty clueless for a guy who possesses a high degree of intelligence in some ways.

Patterico (115b1f) — 4/28/2018 @ 9:52 pm

He could be out of moderation in five minutes if he just did the right thing but I’m not sure he even understands what he did.

Love this bit from my 12:40 Bragg link wherein we learn that famous Old Churchmen like Sir Thomas More were not afraid to use a bit of salty language to get their opinions across:

...Bragg went on to explain that Tyndale’s war of words with More came to a crescendo at that time. More believed that the Bible needed the filter of the Church’s teaching, whereas Tyndale believed that man was born with a spiritual sense; More wrote of Tyndale “You kiss the arse of Luther, the shit-devil, look, my fingers are smeared with shit when I try to clean your filthy mouth” (nice!) and Tyndale called More a lying papist and said that the Church was of the devil; More felt that the Bible was only parchment compared to the Church, but Tyndale saw the Bible as the word of God… and so on. More started executing Tyndale’s supporters but Tyndale carried on with his mission and began translating the Old Testament from Hebrew to English.

The fact his esteemed colleagues in the da's office or the bureau, whose lead agent then I think is mccabes replacement, didn't care, probably did more but it doesn't explain the why of his friendly fire.

Iggy's plaudits for Norton Buffalo led to some research on him. Sorry I am not to have heard of him back when I had ears. But I did see there a reference to Elvin Bishop. I offer a recommendation to any KJOM spinners who might put up an Elvin Bishop tune or two. Travelin' Shoes was always a favorite.

Recollection: During the years I was making regular pilgrimages back to Arkansas to look after mom, I liked to travel at night. One trip I was somewhere between Flagstaff and the Meteor Crater with Travelin' Shoes blastin' out of the tape deck. I glanced down at the speedo and saw I was doin' 115!

"Really? Well, on my planet, we have a legend about people like you. It's called 'Footloose'. And in it, a great hero named Kevin Bacon teaches an entire city full of people with sticks up their butts that dancing, well, is the greatest thing there is."﻿

Another anecdote, coincidentally from that same stretch of I-40. Driving eastward again, same car, a dark gray 4Runner, I was clipping along with another tailwind, doing about 95 or so in broad daylight. As I was overtaking a nice sleek dark colored Mustang carrying a respectable looking black couple, I glanced up ahead and saw something ominous parked on an overpass. A trooper looking straight at us!

I backed off the gas and slid in behind the Mustang about the time we sailed under the overpass on which the trooper was laying rubber in reverse trying to get to the on ramp. Sho-nuf, he started down the ramp, code 3, red lights flashin'. I just let 'er coast down to something more legal speed-wise and braced myself for a meetup with the law. About then I glanced in the rearview to see where he was at, and he went flyin' by me like I was sittin' still. When I caught up with them, the trooper had that nice couple pulled over and was fixin' to give them a ticket. I just sedately drove on by, and stopped as soon as I could for a cup of coffee. Always feel a tiny twinge of guilt about that.

JMH, I believe that the players sold directly by major retailers come with a preset region code and that sellers offering "region-free" players simply reset that code prior to sending them off to the purchasers. I've read that it is the work of a moment to find instructions on performing such a reset oneself. My two unencumbered players from competing Japanese brands still function quite well several years after acquisition.

I have not been to Russia and I didn't know that Helsinki was used in films when the genuine article was off limits. I'm certainly not immune to the allure of the Northern Capital. It was only this week that I got around to watching a film set there. I came across it while visiting another former Soviet Republic and would not leave it on the shelf after reading the first sentence of the description.

Here's the song which served as the theme for several seasons of the Russian television show Gangster Petersburg.

I read the one about the Yellow Fever Asian bowl restaurant within whole foods yesterday, and one of the most ridiculous things about the controversy is that it is a small chain which has been in business in other locations for about 4 years, and no one complained about it UNTIL they partnered with Whole Foods and their grievance mongering clientele.

Oh, and the owner is an ASIAN woman!! (I watched the video hooked to the story I read.)

That @PressSec sat and absorbed intense criticism of her physical appearance, her job performance, and so forth, instead of walking out, on national television, was impressive.
=============================
This tweet was seconded by John Roberts of Fox, and refers to the so-called comedienne
who was at the White House Correspondents Dinner last night.

Maybe Maggie Halberstam should think again about the quality of the people in this administration and why they are as tough and dedicated as they are.

A whole lot of nothing, signifying nothing, other than that the grievance people are working overtime.

The only really interesting things I linked to were the UK caterpillars and the Yellowstone Park eruptions.

When the first George Bush talked about a New World Order, I don't think he had invasive species in mind. Yet, like the "Zoo" TV series, we may not be the dominant species in the future.

And if the "Yellowstone" caldera were to erupt it would devastate the US. Similarly, other devastations, of any kind, could take out other countries. Asteroid, comet, volcano, earthquake, etc. Could instantly re-order global supremacy.

While he didn’t take issue with Clinton personally, he told the paper that “what surprised me is, the Democratic Party is supposed to stand for other people and not be part of this larger industrial complex.”

I'm just getting caught up with reading and on my 2nd cup. Lots of stuff on the stack.

AB, thanks for the pointer to Carr Valley Xtra Sharp. I will be on the lookout for it. I might also do a foray to La Valle if necessary. Last time I was out that was 2004. I see they offer free shipping for orders over $49, so that's immediately doable.

"...And he wrote, "No one is going to believe or trust us so long as we pretend like we’re not part of the credibility problem. Look in a mirror, people."

"Nice guy, but Adams is giving the benefit of the doubt to people who have no interest in credibility. In fact, they want the public to distrust the media because that helps a fascist state oppress the people.

Theodore Dalrymple explained this well.

"In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is...in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to," he wrote."

While Washington, Michigan, was a big success, Washington, D.C., just didn’t work. Everyone is talking about the fact that the White House Correspondents Dinner was a very big, boring bust...the so-called comedian really “bombed.” @greggutfeld should host next year! @PeteHegseth

How many people know that the Bay of Pigs was not the original landing site.

The original location for the landing was the city of Trinidad, which was in hilly/mountainous terrain, and close to a possible refuge and base of operations - the Escambray mountains.

Kennedy vetoed Trinidad and the Bay of Pigs was selected. A remote swampy area on the southern coast of Cuba, where a night landing might bring a force ashore against little resistance and help to hide any U.S. involvement. The Bay of Pigs was 80 miles away from the Escambray mountains.

I wonder how much more of the Kennedy Library information is not quite correct (Leaving out Trinidad option).

More information can be found at:

Site change called fatal to invasion, The Miami Herald, January 5, 1997.

"Landing at the Bay of Pigs could not possibly succeed and was going to end in disaster. That's the word I used." BAY OF PIGS PLANNER: Retired Col. Jack Hawkins. Invasion planning chief.